


Filling In The Rest Of The Holes

by MedieavalBeabe



Category: Holes (2003), The Duchess (2008), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Characters Have Nicknames, Characters Seventeen Years Old, Gen, Holes Adult Characters Used, Holes au, Loki/Georgiana - Freeform, The Duchess AU, Thor Movies AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 06:11:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5994430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MedieavalBeabe/pseuds/MedieavalBeabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seventeen year old Thor Odinson’s family has a history of bad luck, but even he didn’t foresee the turn of events that would send him to Camp Greenlake, Juvenile Detention Centre. </p><p>Every day he and his fellow inmates – Dash, Grimm, Axel, Fighter and Frost - are told to dig a hole, five foot wide by five foot deep, reporting anything they find. The evil warden claims that it is character building, but this is a lie and Thor and his new friend Loki must dig up the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Don’t ask what prompted this fanfic, ‘cause I can’t remember. It started off as a Loki/Georgiana fanfic but ended up turning into a story about Thor and Loki with Loki/Georgiana as a side pairing.
> 
> Ok, so I know in Norse mythology, to have a name ending in “son” meant you were actually someone’s son, not their daughter, but if I hadn’t used that for Farbauti, it wouldn’t work with the whole ancestral bloodline thing, so just use your imaginations here and pretend that it only happens with Thor’s family and no one else’s in this fic, ok?
> 
> Also, being British, I know there aren’t any deserts there, but again, use your imaginations; after all, we had a horrible hot summer last year, and it would upset the balance of the story if I’d set it anywhere else.
> 
> Finally, here are the nicknames and who they belong to in case anyone wants them: Dash = Fandral, Grimm = Hogun, Axel = Volstagg, Fighter = Sif, Frost = Loki, Hammer = Thor)

_“It’s all because of your no-good, dirty, rotten, pig-stealing great, great grandfather!”_

The words echoed in Thor’s head as he stepped off the bus, and looked around this so-called “camp.” It looked nothing like he had imagined camp, from the descriptions he had heard from Tyr Petrson in school last spring. They made his essay on “What I Did Over The Summer,” pale significantly by comparison.

 

“This is Camp Greenlake?” he questioned the officer who had accompanied him.

 

“Yeah,” the officer grunted.

 

“Where’s the lake?”

 

That innocent question earned him a clip around the ear and a mutter of “Move it,” from the officer as he was hustled towards an office where a burly man with red hair and a pistol in his holster sat behind a desk. Thor swallowed hard as he was shoved into a chair opposite the man, who regarded him with narrow eyes.

 

“What’s with the sunflower seeds?” asked the officer, nodding at the burlap sack on the desk.

 

“I quit smoking,” the man replied, picking up Thor’s file. “Thor Odinson...unusual name.”

 

“Yeah, well I’m actually named after my great grandfather, Thor Burison, so-”

 

Thor shut up when the man simply dropped his file, looking completely disinterested.

 

“My name is Mr Sir,” he announced, and Thor just managed to stifle a laugh. “If ever you talk to me, you’re to address me by my name, understand?”

 

“Yes, Mr Sir,” Thor managed to say.

 

Mr Sir glowered at him and got to his feet, reached into a small fridge behind him and drew out a bottle of Coca-Cola. Automatically, Thor reached for it, but instead Mr Sir handed it to the officer behind him, who thanked him before leaving the room.

 

“Thirsty, Odinson?” Mr Sir asked.

 

“Yes, Mr Sir,” Thor replied.

 

“You’d better get used to it, then, you’re gonna be thirsty for the next eighteen months.”

 

XXX

 

After being introduced to the basics of Camp Greenlake, and being shoved into an orange jumpsuit that made him grimace, Thor found himself passed onto someone else, his Camp Counsellor. Unlike Mr Sir, Dr Pendanski seemed relatively cordial in nature, greeting him in a somewhat friendly manner and showing him around the camp.

 

“And that’s the Warden’s cabin,” he added, pointing to a larger building that had a white 1957 Chrysler parked outside it. “That’s the one main rule of Camp Greenlake, don’t upset the Warden.”

 

“Yeah, he did seem kind of-” Thor began.

 

“Who? Mr Sir? Oh, he’s not the Warden. He’s just been in a bad mood since he quit smoking.”

 

“What about the gun?”

 

“Oh, that’s just for Yellow Spotted Lizards. Ever seen one?” Thor shook his head. Dr Pendanski grinned. “You get bit by one of those, you're dead in seconds, and there’s a lot of them around here, so keep your eyes open. Ah!” he added, seeing three teenagers dressed just like Thor, but covered in dust from head to foot, approaching. “Here are some of your roommates. You’re staying in Cabin D.” He led the way over to the teenagers, and Thor suddenly realised that one of them was actually a girl.

 

“Hey, Mum, who’s the Neanderthal?” one of the boys asked.

 

“This is Thor,” Dr Pendanski replied, “and Thor, this is Volstagg, Fandral and Sif.”

 

“Hi,” Thor replied.

 

“No, my name is Fighter,” the girl corrected Dr Pendanski, “and that’s Dash and Axel.”

 

“And he’s Mum,” Dash added.

 

“They all have their little nicknames for each other,” Dr Pendanski explained, “but I’d prefer to call them by the names their parents gave them, the names society will recognise them by.” The trio rolled their eyes. “Thor’s bunking with you lot in D.”

 

“Whatever,” Fighter shrugged, leading the way inside. Thor followed the group into the cabin, surprised to see two more boys inside, one sitting on his bunk, the other lying on his and staring at the ceiling.

 

“Who’s this?” the seated boy asked.

 

“Thor,” Dr Pendanski replied, “and Thor, this is Hogun.”

 

“It’s Grimm,” Hogun sighed.

 

“And this is Frost,” Dr Pendanski added, indicating the other boy, who said nothing. “Want to know why we call him Frost? ‘Cause he’s forever giving people the cold shoulder, won’t say a word to anyone, isn’t that right, Frost?”

 

Frost just looked away from him.

 

“Hi,” Thor muttered, glancing about the cabin for an available bed.

 

“Slop Bucket slept here,” Axel said, indicating a bed beside his. “It’s yours now.”

 

“Speaking of which, what’s happening with him?” Fighter asked.

 

“Oh, Vidar won’t be returning,” Dr Pendanski replied, looking sorrowful.

 

Thor looked up. “What; was it a lizard?”

 

“Adder,” Grimm grunted. “Luckily.”

 

“Thor, you got any questions, just ask Volstagg,” Dr Pendanski added. “Volstagg, you’ll be his mentor, got it?”

 

Volstagg sighed. “Why do I get stuck babysitting the newbie?”

 

“Please, Axel, if you sat on him, he’d die!” Dash laughed, and then received a pillow in the face, which he promptly threw back at Axel. It missed and hit Frost, who threw it back at Axel with force and an angry look.

 

“Alright, pack it in,” Dr Pendanski chided, lightly. “Volstagg, I’m depending on you, got it?”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Axel sighed.

 

Thor glanced over at Frost, who was looking back up at the ceiling. He frowned, trying to work out how someone so quiet could have ended up here in the first place. The green eyes snapped to his, held his gaze for a second, and then Frost turned away from him, facing the wall.

 

“So, Volstagg, where do I fill up my canteen?” Thor asked, holding it up.

 

Instantly, though, he regretted what he had just said, as Axel sprang up and seized him by the collar, pinning him to the wall. Thor was strong himself, but taken by surprise all he could do was stare at the annoyed look on Axel’s face.

 

“My name’s not Volstagg!” he snapped, aggressively, before throwing Thor down to the floor. “It’s Axel!”

 

“Take it easy, Axe, he’s new!” Dash called.

 

“There’s a pump outside,” Axel added.

 

Stunned, Thor clambered to his feet, picked up his canteen and went to the door.

 

“Thanks, Axel,” he muttered, stepping outside.

 

XXX

 

That evening, Thor followed everyone else into the dining hall to collect his daily portion of dinner, which consisted of some kind of lumpy meat stew that didn’t look very appealing, but the way his stomach was rumbling at that minute, Thor would have eaten road kill.

 

“Sit with us,” Grimm said, leading the way over to the table where the other roommates of Cabin D were already seated. Thor realised that even if they weren’t friends, the roommates of the same cabins always stuck together, and besides they were the only people he’d got to know so far in this place, so he followed Grimm and slid into a space between him and Dash. Fighter sat at the head of the table, with Axel and Frost seated opposite Thor, Dash and Grimm.

 

“So, what are you in for anyway?” she asked.

 

Thor glanced down at his bowl, toying with the stew. “Stealing a pair of shoes.”

 

Everyone, apart from Frost, laughed.

 

“What, from the store?” Axel snorted. “Or were they still on someone’s feet?”

 

“They were Clyde Livingstone’s shoes,” Thor explained.

 

“Sweet Feet? No way!” Dash exclaimed. “How?”

 

“He’d donated them to this homeless shelter,” Thor began.

 

“Did they have green Xs on them?” Frost asked, suddenly.

 

There was a clatter around the table as everyone apart from Thor promptly dropped their forks. Even Thor was surprised, he had only met Frost ten minutes ago and already knew him to be the mute one of the group. Or not, now, as the case may be.

 

“You guys, Frost just talked!” Axel exclaimed, in case no one had realised that already.

 

“What else can you do, Frost?” Dash asked.

 

Frost ignored him, and looked pointedly at Thor, waiting for an answer.

 

“Yeah,” Thor replied, surprised that Frost even knew that. “Yeah they did.”

 

Seemingly satisfied, Frost went back to his dinner, leaving the others to just gawp at him.

 

XXX

 

In the middle of the night, or so it seemed, Thor found himself jolted out of sleep by the someone outside blowing a horn. He jumped, rubbing his eyes and trying to make sense of what was happening...and then remembered where he was.

 

“Get up!” Fighter was standing by his bed, hands on hips. “It’s time to dig.”

 

“But it’s dark,” Thor protested.

 

“Six ‘til six, just like Mum told you,” she retorted.

 

With a groan, Thor dragged himself out of bed and yanked on his overalls, before following everyone else out to where the rest of the inmates were gathered outside a shed. Mr Sir was there, waiting, and when they had all finished spilling out of their respective cabins, he unlocked the shed, which was revealed to be full of shovels. One by one, they moved forwards to get one, however just as Thor had picked up his, he felt it yanked out of his hands by Fighter.

 

“You nearly picked up her shovel,” Dash muttered to him. “It’s shorter than the rest of them.”

 

“Smaller shovel, smaller hole,” Grimm added.

 

Sighing, Thor seized another shovel and followed his team over to where they were to be digging for the day. Once there, they were all distributed rations by Mr Sir from inside his water truck, and had their canteens filled, by which time the sun had begun to rise.

 

“This ain’t no girl scout camp,” he informed Thor. “No one gonna babysit you. You dig here.” He tapped the ground with his foot. “Now, if you find anything interesting, you turn it in to me or Pendanski. If the Warden likes what you find, you get the rest of the day off, is that clear?”

 

“Yes, Mr Sir,” Thor replied. “What am I supposed to be looking for?”

 

“You’re not looking for anything,” Mr Sir replied. “You’re building character.”

 

Thor didn’t believe that for a minute, but he did what he was told and started to dig. The desert ground was hard and before long his hands were blistered from the force of trying to dig through it.

 

“The first hole’s the hardest!” Dash called over to him. “Your hands’ll get used to it after a while!”

 

Thor tried to ignore the pain in his hands, focusing instead on something else; the curse that had sent him here in the first place. The ironic thing, he reflected, was that no one believed him when he had said he hadn’t stolen the shoes, and now here at Camp Greenlake no one believed him when he said he had.

 

He thought back to the story his grandfather, Bor, had told him, about his great, great grandfather, Buri Aesirson, who had fallen in love with a farmer’s simple daughter, Britte, back in Norway, against the advice of his good friend, Farbauti Laufeyson, a soothsayer and wise old woman.

 

“Your future would be better spent if you emigrated to America, or Britain,” she told him. “That’s where my son is.”

 

But, Buri had insisted that Britte was the only one for him and so had propositioned her Father for her hand in marriage, only to learn that a neighbouring pig farmer Brandr had offered his fattest pig in exchange for Britte. So, Farbauti decided to help him by giving him the smallest piglet on her own farm and the secret to making it grow fatter.

 

“Every day, you take the pig up the mountain and make it drink from the stream up there, whilst you sing to it. Every day the pig will grow fatter, and you will grow stronger. Now, after you get the girl, you must carry me up the mountain and sing while I drink, so I can get strong too,” she told him.

 

“Of course,” Buri promised.

 

“But if you forget your promise, you and your family shall be cursed for always and eternity,” Farbauti added.

 

In the end, however, after all of the Buri’s hard work, his pig weighed exactly the same as Brandr’s, and when it became apparent that Britte was too empty headed to be able to choose between her two suitors, Buri had left in disgust and boarded the next boat to the UK. But he had forgotten his promise to Farbauti, and that was how the whole curse had come about in the first place.

 

The words of the song came back to him now and he hummed them, lightly, under his breath.

 

“If only, if only” the woodpecker sighs,

“the bark on the tree was as soft as the skies.”

“While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely,

“he cries to the moon

“If only, if only...”

 

It helped, because before he realised it, he had dug almost half the hole. Glancing up, he was surprised to see Frost walking away from the hole he had been digging. He frowned.

 

“Finished already?” he asked, not really expecting any answer.

 

“Frost’s the fastest digger,” Fighter shrugged. “Everyone knows that.”

 

By the time Thor was done with his own hole, it was growing dark and everyone else had already finished up and gone. With a groan, Thor pulled himself out of the hole, in a rather ungainly fashion, and made his weary way back to the camp.

 

“One down,” he muttered, “only another...million left to go...”

 

XXX

 

A few days later, and Thor realised that Dash had been telling the truth; the more he dug, the more his hands became used to digging. He was also beginning to get used to Camp Greenlake and his...roommates, well, he couldn’t exactly call them friends since they weren’t exactly friendly to him. The only one who had ever addressed him without some form of contempt in his voice was Frost, and that had been just once, on his first night at Camp Greenlake.

 

Thor had to admire him in a way, he took all the catty remarks his roommates threw at him without much more response than a scowl or a glare, resolutely refusing to break his silence or let their words get to him. He just got on with trying to complete his sentence, kept his head down, and that, to Thor, seemed like the best way to survive.

 

“Oi, Thor!”

 

He glanced up. Fighter was crouching down by his hole.

 

“Want a word with you.”

 

Thor stopped digging and faced her. “Well?”

 

“Listen, I’ve been here for over six months and never found anything. No one has. So, if you find anything, you give it to _me,_ understand? Why should you get a day off when you’ve only just got here?”

 

“Fair enough,” Thor agreed. That was the best way, he decided, to just go along with it, keep his head down, play it safe, like Frost.

 

Fighter smiled. “Glad we understand each other.”

 

She patted his shoulder, condescendingly, and went back to her own hole. However, Thor found nothing that day, except for an ancient stone that turned out to be a Neolithic hammer head; which Dr Pendanski had said was interesting, but not good enough to be handed over to the Warden when Thor suggested it. The others just laughed at him, all except for Frost, of course, who just went back to digging. Thor watched him for a while, wondering what could possibly be going on inside his head that made him shovel the earth with such a force.

 

What _was_ his story?

 

Later that night, Thor made his way into the Rec’ Room, or rather Wreck Room as it had been written on the door by one of the other inmates, which was essentially just a room with a television, a snooker table, table football and several armchairs, a bit like a grotty school common room, he decided. A few boys near him were trying to wrestle, and as he made his way past, amid all the noise and blurring action, Thor felt himself jostled into one of the larger boys from Cabin C.

 

“Hey, watch it!” the boy snapped, pushing him.

 

Thor, in no mood for being pushed by anyone, bit back a _“You_ watch it, man!” before he could stop himself.

 

The next thing he knew he had been knocked to the floor only to be dragged up again by the collar as the lump of a boy aimed to take a swing at him. Before he could hit him, though, Fighter, Dash, Axel and Grimm leapt in between them. Released, only Thor noticed that Frost had seized the black ball from the pool table, ready to use as a weapon if it was needed.

 

“Hey, cool off,” Fighter insisted to the lumpy boy, “otherwise the Warden’s gonna crack down hard on all of us.”

 

“You just keep that punk away from me!” the boy snapped, stalking away.

 

Thor breathed out. “Thanks,” he muttered as the boys led him over to the pool table. Frost released the ball and leaned back against the wall as if nothing had happened.

 

“No one messes with the Hammer,” Fighter said.

 

“Yeah, did you _see_ the Hammer back there?” Axel asked.

 

“I don’t want to mess with anyone,” Thor began, but he was cut off by the sound of the dinner bell.

 

“You coming, Hammer?” Dash asked, patting his back before walking out of the room.

 

Thor frowned. When it was just he and Frost left in the room, he asked “So, I’m Hammer, now?”

 

Frost shrugged and stuck his hands deep into his pockets. “Better than Slop Bucket,” he pointed out.

 

With a grin, Thor followed him out of the room.

 

XXX

 

The next day, as they all lined up to get their water from Mr Sir’s truck, Thor was surprised when Frost, who usually stood in front of him, was shoved to one side by Fighter, and she indicated for Thor to stand in his place.

 

“You stand here now, Hammer,” she informed him.

 

Shooting Frost an apologetic look, Thor did as she asked.

 

XXX

 

“What about you, Hogun?” Dr Pendanski asked that night, during a group counsellor-inmate talk. “What do you like?”

 

“I like animals,” Grimm replied.

 

“Yeah, that’s what got him banged up here in the first place,” Dash chortled.

 

“It’s criminal the way people keep them locked up in cages,” Grimm insisted. “No one should have to live like that.”

 

“No, Grimm, what you did was criminal,” Dr Pendanski corrected him, before turning to Thor. “So...you’re Hammer, now? Mr Big Shot. Got a nickname. But let me tell you something, Ham-mer, you are here on account of only one person.”

 

“Yeah,” Thor joked, “my no-good, dirty, rotten, pig-stealing great, great grandfather according to my Granddad.”

 

Surprisingly, Fighter, Dash, Axel and Grimm all laughed, and for the first time since knowing him, Thor actually saw Frost smile.

 

“No, _you_ screwed your life up, Thor Odinson,” Dr Pendanski replied. “And it’s up to you to fix it. It ain’t gonna be easy, but you’d be surprised what you can accomplish once you set your mind to it. Even Frost here isn’t completely worthless.”

 

Realising that he was suddenly the centre of attention, Frost fixed his expression into a serious one again, his eyes unfocused.

 

“What about it, Frost?” Dr Pendanski insisted. “What do you like to do?” Frost said nothing. “You just won’t talk to me, will you?” Pendanski sighed.

 

“Nah, he only talks to Hammer,” Axel replied.

 

Thor glanced at Frost, wondering whether Dr Pendanski wanted him to ask the question, see if he could get Frost to open up. Frost glanced at him, and then sighed, leaning back in his chair.

 

“I like digging holes, alright?” he muttered.

 

Dr Pendanski grinned. “Then you’re in the right place for it.”

 

XXX

 

Thor was woken that night by the sound of someone moving about in the cabin. He frowned and sat up. Strange. All the beds were occupied.

 

No, not all of them, now he looked closer. Frost’s was empty.

 

Frowning deeper, Thor pushed the thin covers off himself and climbed out of bed. No one else stirred as he moved to the doorway of the cabin. To his surprise, Frost was sitting on the top step, staring up at the open, star-filled sky. Wondering if he should be worried about him, Thor walked up and gave him a gentle prod.

 

Frost stiffened and looked up at him.

 

“What are you doing?” Thor asked, his voice laced heavily with sleep.

 

The other boy’s jaw hardened and he looked away.

 

“Thinking,” he said.

 

Thor gestured to the cabin. “Want me to..?”

 

Frost just shrugged. With a tired sigh, Thor went back to bed, and fell asleep almost instantly, resolving not to tell anyone about the incident. After all, whatever else Frost’s private thoughts were, they were his own, nobody else’s business.

 

XXX

 

_Dear Mum,_

_I’m having a wonderful time at camp. The food’s great, not as good as yours, of course, but I like it. We’ve been out on the lake all day. Once we pass the swimming tests, we get to learn how to water ski. There’s a lot of great activities they have planned out for us, I can’t wait to find out what we get to do next week._

_I’m making a lot of friends. My roommates aren’t bad kids, they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, like me. But we all get on alright, part of one big team. We even have nicknames for each other, it’s fun. And you’d really like my counsellor, he’s a doctor. Useful, right, in case anyone gets sick?_

_Well, that’s all for now, I guess, Mum,_

_Say “Hi” to Dad and Granddad for me,_

_Love your son Thor xxx_

XXX

 

_Dear Thor,_

_Your letter makes me feel like one of the other mothers, who can afford to send their kids to summer camp._

_Your Father thinks he’s on the verge of a breakthrough with the food odour cure. I do hope so, Thor, because the landlord keeps threatening to evict us because of the smell._

_I’m so glad to hear you’re being taken care of at camp and enjoying it. Of course we all miss and worry about you, but your letter put us all at ease. Just hang in there. If your Father manages this, we might be able to afford to get a better lawyer and find out who really stole those shoes._

_I’d better go, now; your Granddad’s yelling at the landlord, and you know how he can get sometimes_

_All my love, Mum xxx_

_P.S. I feel so sorry for the little old lady who lived in the shoe, because it must have smelled really bad._

Thor laughed as he read the letter again. That was so like his Granddad, and about the old lady and the shoe...it made him feel more at ease.

 

“What are you laughing at?”

 

Thor jumped. He hadn’t even heard Frost come into the cabin.

 

“Just something my Mum wrote,” he replied, folding the letter. “About feeling sorry for the little old lady who lived in a shoe because it must have smelled really bad.” He chuckled, but Frost just looked blank. “You know? Like the nursery rhyme?”

 

Frost frowned. Thor gave up and opened the letter up again. Then, a shadow fell over it and he looked up to see Frost leaning over him. He quickly folded the letter again and moved away.

 

“Sorry, it just feels awkward with you reading over my shoulder like that,” he said.

 

“I’m not reading over your shoulder,” Frost replied, going back to his own bunk. “Because I can’t read. Or write.”

 

Thor was surprised.

 

“Oh,” he managed to say.

 

Frost looked over at him. “Can you teach me?”

 

Awkwardly, Thor got to his feet. “I don’t think so. I’m not really a good teacher, and I get tired from the digging, so...” He shrugged. “Sorry.”

 

He turned and left the cabin, feeling like the calluses on his hands had somehow transferred onto his heart.

 

XXX

 

The next day, whilst the others in their holes were willing a tiny scrap of cloud to move over the sun and give them all a break from the searing heat, Thor noticed something sticking out of the dirt on the end of his shovel. With a frown, he pulled it out and held it up. It was thin, gold and bullet shaped, only it was too long, too skinny, to be a bullet.

 

“Hey, what you got there, Hammer?” Dash asked, suddenly scrabbling out of his hole and coming over.

 

“I’m not sure,” Thor admitted. “Hey, Fighter, I think I’ve found something.”

 

Fighter came over, followed by the others, and took it from him. “Wonder what it is?” she mused.

 

“A shotgun shell?” Axel suggested.

 

“No, it’s too skinny for that,” Grimm observed.

 

Frost rolled his eyes, as if they were all being completely thick, but said nothing.

 

Thor took the thing back from Fighter and showed her something carved on the side. “See that, in the heart? K.B.”

 

“K.B?” Dash repeated. “Who’s that?”

 

“Who cares?” Fighter asked, taking the thing back from Thor. “If I turn it into Mum, I’ll get the rest of the day off.”

 

“But your hole’s already dug,” Thor protested. “I’m not even halfway there.”

 

Fighter scowled. “So?”

 

“So...why don’t you show Mum in the morning, and then you’ll get the whole day off?” Thor invented, quickly.

 

Fighter smiled. “That’s good thinking, Hammer. I like it.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seventeen year old Thor Odinson’s family has a history of bad luck, but even he didn’t foresee the turn of events that would send him to Camp Greenlake, Juvenile Detention Centre. 
> 
> Every day he and his fellow inmates – Dash, Grimm, Axel, Fighter and Frost - are told to dig a hole, five foot wide by five foot deep, reporting anything they find. The evil warden claims that it is character building, but this is a lie and Thor and his new friend Loki must dig up the truth.

It was official. They were definitely looking for something.

 

And they were looking for it in the wrong place, Thor realised. Still, he couldn’t very well point that out to anyone, because then Fighter might get into trouble for taking credit for his find, and then the whole of Cabin D might turn against him.

 

So, he kept quiet and just dug alongside the others, as instructed by the Warden, whom, it had turned out, was actually a woman. Somehow she seemed to know his nickname, even though he was certain that Dr Pendanski wouldn’t have told her, nor would Mr Sir. Dash maintained that it was because she had the whole place wired and bugged with cameras and microphones. If that was true, Thor reflected, that was probably another reason why no one here ever ran away, she would probably know in advance.

 

By the end of a long week of digging out a whole underground city, however, and finding nothing, Mr Sir announced to them all that the Warden wanted them to go back to digging their individual holes, and that was exactly what they did.

 

Whatever it was they were looking for, and now Thor knew that no one could deny that that was what they were doing, it had to be pretty important for all this trouble, he reflected.

 

XXX

 

The next day, Mr Sir filled their canteens with water as usual, making some anecdote about all life beginning with water as Thor waited for his, and drove off as usual when he was done. However, not long after he had disappeared from sight, Dash exclaimed “Hey, guys! Anyone want some sunflower seeds?”

 

He held up the burlap sack Thor had seen on Mr Sir’s desk that first day.

 

“Can never resist an open window,” he grinned, tossing the bag to Fighter, who tossed it on to Axel, who tossed it to Grimm, who tossed it to Thor...who missed it. The bag hit the floor of his hole and the seeds began to spill out.

 

“Oh, Thor, butterfingers!” Grimm called.

 

“Shit!” Dash exclaimed. “He’s coming back!”

 

Thor sprang up and attempted to bury both sack and seeds in the dirt in his hole just as the truck pulled up beside them. Mr Sir stepped out, glared around at them all and then his eyes fell on the edge of the burlap sack that Thor hadn’t done a very good job of hiding.

 

“You’re coming to see the Warden,” he growled.

 

XXX

 

Thor left the Warden’s cabin some time later with a shudder and made his way back to the holes. He didn’t want to replay what had just happened in there over in his mind. The Warden hadn’t been the least bit interested in the story of the stolen sunflower seeds, which Thor had taken full responsibility for, even though Mr Sir didn’t seem to believe that he had acted alone; and the whole thing had ended with her slapping Mr Sir right after she had painted her nails with a polish made of adder venom.

 

Something about her array of nail polish bottles, perfumes, lipstick tubes on the dressing table had struck a chord with him, but he couldn’t think why. Something else had struck him in that cabin too, old newspaper clippings and Victorian-style Wanted posters of some outlaw named Kissing Kate Barlow. Why did that name sound familiar?

 

Oh, yes, his great grandfather, Thor Burison had been held up and robbed by her years ago; she had been a highway woman, one who had never been caught, quite famous in her day, leaving lipstick marks of kisses on the men she killed. He couldn’t remember his Granddad telling him how she had gone from being a quiet, loveable schoolteacher to a rough law-breaking highway woman, but he remembered the part about his ancestor being robbed by her.

 

“He found refuge in the desert, he said on God’s Thumb,” he had stated, “but who knows what that means? He was half crazy when they found him.”

 

“Hey, Hammer, what’d you tell her?” called Fighter as he approached.

 

“Nothing,” Thor replied.

 

“What’d she do?” Axel asked.

 

“Nothing,” Thor repeated, and then he noticed something. His hole had already been dug, in fact, it was almost complete. He laughed in delight. “Thank you, guys!”

 

“Don’t look at us,” Grimm said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “It was Frost.”

 

“Guess he really does just like to dig holes,” Dash mused.

 

Thor went over to Frost and crouched beside his hole. “Hey, Frost, what gives? Why’d you dig my hole?”

 

“You didn’t steal the sunflower seeds,” Frost replied.

 

“Yeah, but neither did you,” Thor pointed out.

 

Frost fixed him with a look. “You didn’t steal the shoes.”

 

Thor was surprised. Frost actually believed him? He took a deep breath. “Well...thanks. Still want to learn how to read and write?”

 

Frost looked up at him in surprise, and when he saw that Thor wasn’t bluffing, he nodded. Thor held out his hand and after a brief hesitation, Frost shook it.

 

“Ok, later,” Thor said.

 

XXX

 

Mr Sir was in a foul mood that night at dinner. Thor noted the sticking plaster over his face, the blood from the cuts still visible through it, and literally kept his head down when he received his helping of the stew. Beside him, Frost frowned but said nothing, unlike one of the boys from Cabin A who leaned in and exclaimed “Whoa! What happened to your face?”

 

Immediately, the poor boy found himself seized by the collar as Mr Sir hissed “Something wrong with my face?”

 

“N-no, Mr Sir!” the boy gasped.

 

“You got that right!” Mr Sir growled, before throwing him to the floor and stalking away.

 

Thor breathed out, reminding himself that it could have been him.

 

The next day, though, he found out just how much Mr Sir had come to hate him, when, instead of filling his canteen with water, Mr Sir let the water run on the ground before thrusting the empty canteen back to him with a grunt of “There, that should hold you.”

 

Thor swallowed. “Thank you, Mr Sir,” he muttered politely, going back to his hole. As usual his mind was elsewhere, thinking about that gold tube they had found, with the letters K.B engraved on it...and what K.B could stand for.

 

Frost joined him after Mr Sir had gone and held out his own canteen. “Want some water?”

 

Thor accepted, gratefully and then said “Hey, you remember that gold tube we found?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I think it might have been a tube of lipstick, and that K.B was Kate Barlow.”

 

Frost looked at him, sceptically. “Kissing Kate Barlow?”

 

“Kissing Kate Barlow,” Thor agreed.

 

XXX

 

Afterwards, when everyone else was chilling in the Wreck Room, he led Frost back to their cabin, found a pencil and some paper and wrote out his name in large capitals.

 

“F-R-O-S-T,” he said, showing Frost each letter and then handing him the pencil. Frost watched him rubbing his eyes.

 

“Are you sure you can stay awake?” he asked.

 

“I’m fine,” Thor insisted.

 

“I can help you dig your hole each day so you won’t be too tired to teach me,” Frost suggested.

 

“Nah, I’ll be alright,” Thor insisted.

 

Frost grinned. “Look, you’re a slow digger-”

 

“Oh-ho, look who’s bragging,” Thor teased.

 

Frost grinned, mischievously. “If we do it that way, we’ll be done at the same time.”

 

“Well, it couldn’t hurt,” Thor shrugged, before gesturing for Frost to copy out what he had written. He did it very well for someone who had never learned before, or maybe he had been taught before and just forgotten it.

 

“You know, Frost’s not my real name,” he said.

 

Thor looked surprised. “Well, I figured it might not be, but even Pendanski calls you that, so...”

 

“My real name’s Loki, Loki Laufeyson.”

 

Thor grinned and then shook his hand. “Thor Odinson, nice to meet you.”

 

Loki actually laughed and then, sobering up, asked in a serious, soft tone “So...how do you spell that?”

 

Thor showed him, pronouncing each letter as Loki copied it. “L-O-K-I.”

 

“And how do you spell Georgiana?”

 

Thor thought for a second. “Um, I guess like the name Georgia, but with an N-A on the end.” He took the paper and wrote it down before nodding. “Yeah, that looks right.” As Loki began to copy it, he asked “Who’s Georgiana?”

 

Loki glanced around to make sure that no one else was in earshot before replying. “She’s my...girl.”

 

“As in girlfriend?” Thor asked.

 

“Well, we sort of skipped over the whole dating thing and went right to the falling in love bit,” Loki admitted. Thor must have looked confused because he elaborated. “We were living on the streets about the same time, in the same area. We became friends and formed a group with some of the other homeless lot, we all moved around together, like a family. I mean, it wasn’t easy, scraping to stay alive, sometimes relying on shelters or the Salvation Army for food and a bed, but we managed.” He sighed. “We always said though that no matter what happened, everything would be alright as long as we were together.”

 

Thor sensed that there was more to the story. “Where is she now?”

 

Loki sighed again and put down the pencil. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “She went out for food one day and didn’t come back. I looked all over, but I couldn’t find her. No one could. I’ve no idea what happened, whether she’s still...” He broke off and shook his head. “I wish I knew.”

 

“I’m sure she’s alright,” Thor tried to console.

 

“Well, if I could, I’d hire a whole team of private investigators just to find her,” Loki replied.

 

Thor laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Must have been hard for you both, living out on the streets.”

 

“We managed,” Loki shrugged. “We moved about all over the place, wherever we could. I remember once we lived near Alfheim Park.”

 

Thor looked surprised. “I used to play at Alfheim Park all the time.”

 

Loki smiled, thinly. “We slept on one of the benches once, cuddled up together.” He shrugged. “But, you know, no big deal.”

 

Thor thought for a second. “You know the other day, when you got up in the night?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Were you thinking about her?”

 

Loki looked up and for a second Thor thought he had hit a nerve. Then, Loki nodded with a small smile. “Yeah. I’m always thinking about her, Thor. That’s what keeps me going, keeps me digging.”

 

“I did wonder how you dug so fast,” Thor grinned, and they both laughed, feeling for the first time since either of them had come to Camp Greenlake, that they had found someone to confide in.

 

A friend.

 

XXX

 

“Twenty six letters, so if we do five letters for four days and then six on the fifth,” Loki worked out.

 

“That’s good maths,” Thor replied.

 

“I’m not stupid,” Loki shrugged. “I know everyone thinks I am, I just don’t like answering stupid questions.”

 

“Fair enough,” Thor agreed.

 

It was the following day, and they were digging Thor’s hole together out in the hot sun. Thor watched Loki’s digging and tried to speed up his own to match. He wondered briefly if every thrust of the shovel was another angry dig at himself, for not working hard enough to find Georgiana. It was obvious Loki blamed himself for her disappearance, even if he had never actually said it.

 

“Hey, where’s your whip, Hammer?” Dash snorted, shoving some dirt down their hole as he passed. “Your slave’ll be getting tired.”

 

“It’s not slavery, it’s agreement,” Thor retorted. Loki, of course, said nothing, just continued shovelling.

 

“Whatever,” Dash retorted.

 

By the end of the week, Thor discovered that everyone thought the same way as Dash, that he and Loki were somehow ganging up on them by working together to dig a hole whilst they stuck to digging theirs individually. If they’d had any sense, he reflected, they might have thought up doing the same thing ages ago, pairing up with one another to lighten the load. He did his best to keep his temper though, head down, keeping calm and carrying on as usual, ignoring what they said in the day and continuing to teach Loki in the evenings.

 

It all came to a head on Friday, though, when Axel made a remark during their lunch break, out of earshot of Dr Pendanski, about Thor going to America and opening up his own slave plantation “since you seem to be so good at it,” and Thor decided that he had had enough.

 

He sprang to his feet with a mutter of “That’s it!”

 

Loki got up quickly and grabbed his arm. “Don’t,” he muttered. “It’s not worth it.”

 

“Boy, it’s true,” Axel goaded. “Slaves get devoted to their Masters.”

 

Loki hesitated and then let go of Thor. “Kick his butt,” he muttered.

 

Thor marched up to Axel. “You can stop with the “slave” stuff already, alright? I get it. I’ll dig my own hole from now on.”

 

“Why? Your slave not working hard enough for you?” Axel provoked. “Maybe you _should_ get a whip for him.”

 

“Shut up!” Thor snapped, shoving him harder than he had meant to. Axel went sprawling, his food flying into his half-dug hole as the others watched, open-mouthed. He wasn’t down for long, though, he quickly sprang back up and gave Thor a shove in kind that send him stumbling back against the truck.

 

“Hey, what’s going on over here?” Dr Pendanski asked, coming over.

 

“Nothing, Mum,” Fighter insisted. “They were just playing around.”

 

“I saw what was happening,” Dr Pendanski replied. “So, go on, Thor, hit him back.”

 

Thor sighed. “I really don’t want to.”

 

“Go on, teach him a lesson,” Dr Pendanski insisted.

 

“Yeah, teach me a lesson,” Axel taunted, giving Thor another shove. Thor responded in kind and the next thing he knew, Axel had hit him so hard in the stomach that he could barely breathe. Winded, he stumbled to his knees and then felt another blow to his temple that knocked him down.

 

“Alright, that’s enough!” Dr Pendanski called, seeing he was losing control of the situation.

 

Axel went to throw another punch, however, but it never came as suddenly Loki had seized him in a choke hold. Axel tried to throw him off, but Loki wouldn’t be budged, he was clinging on to the bigger boy like a limpet.

 

“Hey, Frost, stop, he can’t breathe!” Dash exclaimed, running over to pull the apart. At the sound of a gunshot, however, they all jumped away from one another. Dr Pendanski lowered his rifle, which he had fired into the air to break up the fight.

 

“I said that’s enough!” he commanded. “When I say to end something, I mean end it! Now get back to your holes!”

 

Straightening himself, Loki went over to Thor and offered him a hand up. “You ok?” he muttered.

 

“I think so,” Thor groaned, rubbing the side of his head. “Where’d you learn to do that, anyway?”

 

“Streets,” Loki shrugged.

 

“You’re probably going to get in a lot of trouble for that,” Thor told him.

 

“I don’t care,” Loki muttered.

 

“Thanks, though,” Thor added as they climbed back into a hole.

 

“Don’t mention it,” Loki replied.            

 

As predicted, though, the Warden soon arrived, with Mr Sir, and Dr Pendanski explained what had happened to them.

 

“Basically, Frost almost killed Volstagg,” he finished.

 

“Basically?” the Warden repeated.

 

“Axel was beating on Hammer,” Dash supplied, “and then Frost started choking Axel. I had to pull them apart.”

 

“Look, Ma’m, Axe just got a little hot, you know?” Fighter ventured. “Being out in the hot sun all day makes the blood start to boil.”

 

“Is that what happened, Axel?” the Warden asked.

 

“Yeah, well, it makes my blood boil when everyone digs their holes and Hammer just sits around doing nothing,” Axel responded.

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“Ma’m, Frost’s been digging part of Hammer’s hole every day,” Grimm explained.

 

Thor and Loki both sighed as the Warden turned to them.

 

“Is this true?” the Warden demanded of Thor.

 

Thor’s shoulders slumped. “I’m teaching him to read and write. It’s an exchange policy.” The others gave him a disbelieving look. “What? He’s a bright kid.”

 

“Bright?” Dr Pendanski laughed. “Hey, Frost, tell me what C-A-T spells.” Loki just offered him a scowl. “Brilliant, boy’s a genius!” Dr Pendanski added, sarcastically.

 

Thor knew that Loki knew the answer, he just didn’t want to answer that stupid question.

 

“Ok, from now on, I don’t want to see anyone digging anyone else’s holes,” the Warden commanded. “And no more reading lessons.”

 

Thor frowned. “Why? I mean, the hole still gets dug, so who cares who’s digging it?”

 

“You know why you’re digging holes, Odinson?” Mr Sir demanded. “Because it’s good for you; teaches you a lesson!”

 

“If Frost digs your hole, you’re not learning your lesson, are you?” the Warden agreed.

 

Thor sighed. “Alright, well, why can’t I did my own hole and still teach him to read and write?”

 

“Because I said so,” the Warden hissed.

 

“Oh, Thor, we all know you mean well,” Dr Pendanski replied, condescendingly, “but let’s face it, it’s the mental stress you give him that made his blood boil, not the hot sun.”

 

“I’m not digging anymore holes,” Loki ventured.

 

“Good,” the Warden supplied.

 

“I mean, you might as well teach this shovel to read,” Dr Pendanski added, picking it up and thrusting it towards Loki. Loki flinched but didn’t take it. “Go ahead, Frost, take it. It’s all you’ll ever be good for. D-I-G, what’s that spell?”

 

For a second, nothing happened, as if everyone had frozen in time, and then Loki quietly took the shovel, before swinging it and whacking Dr Pendanski around the back of the head with it. The other inmates all crowed in alarm and delight as he went down like a sack of potatoes on the desert ground.

 

“Dig!” Loki answered, loud enough for everyone to hear, before he took off across the desert.

 

“Go, Loki, go!” Thor shouted as Mr Sir took off after him. “Run, Loki!”

 

“Don’t shoot him, you idiot!” the Warden shouted.

 

“You think I would?” Mr Sir exclaimed, brandishing his gun.

 

“That last thing we need is an investigation,” the Warden hissed.

 

Loki kept on running.

 

“Where’s he going to go, anyway?” Mr Sir added. “He won’t get far without water.”

 

“Then I want round the clock security on all water sources,” the Warden replied, emptying a canteen of water over Dr Pendanski to revive him. She looked up at Thor and hissed meaningfully “I still expect to see _six_ holes.”

 

XXX

 

By the time Thor had finished digging, it was growing dark. He sighed as he finally pulled himself out of the hole and glanced around the empty landscape. Loki had long since vanished into the horizon and Thor found himself praying inwardly that his friend was alright. After all, it was the desert, and without much water, he wasn’t likely to survive very long.

 

As he was making his way back to the dining hall, he caught a snippet of the conversation taking place inside the Counsellors Cabin.

 

“Are we sure he had no family?”

 

“He had nobody. He was nobody. He was living on the streets when he was arrested.”

 

“I just don’t want any social workers or anyone like that to come looking for him.”

 

“No one’s going to. I’m telling you, no one cares about Loki Laufeyson.”

 

Thor stepped through the door and folded his arms. _“I_ do,” he said.

 

The three adults gave him a hardened look.

 

“His blood’s on your hands now, boy,” Mr Sir stated.

 

XXX

 

“If he’s not back by morning, he’s dead,” Axel said that night in Cabin D.

 

“He’s dead anyway,” Fighter pointed out. “Whether he stays out there _or_ comes back.”

 

“When do you think they’ll find his body?” Dash asked.

 

“What body?” Grimm replied. “Frost’s buzzard food. You know they pick out the eyeballs first, right?”

 

“Ah, don’t be disgusting!” Fighter retorted, throwing a pillow at him.

 

Thor said nothing, just turned over and tried to forget his worries, but it wasn’t easy.

 

“Loki!” he found himself shouting into the desert the next evening when, once again, he was alone in finishing off digging both his and Loki’s holes. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted again. “Loki! LOKI!”

 

But no one responded.

 

Thor rubbed at his eyes, pretending that it was because he had sand and dust in them.

 

XXX

 

It didn’t take them long to find someone to replace Loki. The new offender was a girl this time, named Sigyn, but her twitchy attitude instantly earned her the nickname Twitch. It turned out she had been caught out joyriding; even telling them all about it she seemed jittery.

 

“You should have seen me behind the wheel of that Mustang Convertible,” she said, shuddering a little. “Ooh!”

 

Thor listened, wondering if she could teach someone else to hotwire a car if they needed to, a plan slowly forming in his mind, to go out after Loki and bring him back...providing he was still alive, of course.

 

 _Don’t think like that,_ Thor, he scolded himself, _of course he is!_

“First hole’s the hardest,” he advised her the next day during their water break.

 

“Thanks,” Twitch replied, taking his proffered hand and pulling herself out of the hole. She studied him, carefully. “Are you alright? You seem really distant all the time.”

 

“I miss Loki,” Thor replied, simply.

 

“Oh, the boy I replaced?” Twitch asked.

 

“He was my friend,” Thor shrugged, brushing down his overalls. “My only one.”

 

They wandered over to the water truck, past the line of their inmates waiting to get their canteens filled, and Thor peered inside. The keys were still in the ignition. Twitch seemed to anticipate what he was about to do and nodded, vigorously. She kept an eye out whilst Mr Sir was distracted breaking up a dispute between Dash and Axel, and Thor quietly opened the truck door and slipped into the driver’s seat.

 

The sound of the ignition alerted Mr Sir to what was going on.

 

“Come on, put it in gear!” Twitch called.

 

Thor found the gearstick and did what she said. The truck took off at a rather alarming speed with Mr Sir running after it, and the others shouting out encouragement behind him, crowing with laughter when Mr Sir fell into a hole.

 

“Keep going, Hammer!” someone shouted as he passed more groups of inmates.

 

“Goodbye, Camp Green-!”

 

The truck tipped up over into another hole and Thor’s words were drowned out by the steering wheel’s airbag.

 

“My truck!” gasped Mr Sir.

 

Thor quickly scrabbled out of the truck, out of the hole and began to run as fast as his legs could carry him.

 

“You’ve done it now, boy!” Mr Sir shouted after him. “Keep running, or there’s not going to be a Thorson in your family!”

 

Thor looked back only once, to see the other inmates cheering and waving after him, before the desert horizon swallowed him up from their sight. Only when he felt like his heart was about to burst did he eventually stop running. He stumbled, catching his breath and checked over his shoulder. No one was following him. With a deep breath, Thor straightened up and began to walk.

 

Passing by a hole, he glanced over it and shuddered at the sight of about six Yellow Spotted Lizards nestled inside it, hissing at him.

 

“Whoa,” he muttered, making a mental note to watch where he was walking.

 

After a while, the giant holes became few and far between and eventually he was walking on solid, flat plane. He felt like a giant weight had been lifted from his shoulders, the feeling of finally leaving Camp Greenlake behind.

 

Now all he had to do was find Loki.

 

Presently, he spotted something flapping from a dead bush and walked up to it. It was a sunflower seed bag. He frowned, thoughtfully, as he picked it up, before turning it upside down to see if there was anything in it. It was empty. Then, he noticed, not too far away from the bush, a long, overturned wooden rowboat. At first he was puzzled, and then he remembered Dr Pendanski once telling him that Greenlake was once a town with an actual lake right beside it, before it dried up, so of course it would be natural to find a boat here somewhere.

 

Thor made his way over to the boat, noticing that someone had recently dug underneath it to make some kind of shelter from the sun. His heart lurched when he saw a pair of feet, legs clad in orange overalls, sticking out from underneath it.

 

“Loki?”

 

The legs moved and he breathed out, letting out a laugh of relief as Loki emerged from underneath the boat. It looked as if he had just woken up.

 

“Thor?” he groaned, groggily, rubbing his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

 

“I was worried about you, you fool!” Thor laughed, grabbing him for a hug before looking him over. “I thought the lizards might have got you or something!”

 

Loki laughed. “I’m fine. Got any water?”

 

Thor wanted to kick himself for not topping up before stealing the truck. “No, I’m out,” he replied, showing the empty canteen. “But you know the water truck? I tried to drive the whole thing out here for you. I drove into a hole.”

 

“Figures,” Loki smiled. “What’s in the bag?”

 

“Nothing, it’s empty,” Thor replied, leaning against the side of the boat. After a moment’s silence, he added “Look, Loki, we’ve got to get back to camp.”

 

Loki looked at him as though he’d gone nuts. “I’m not going back. Want something to eat?”

 

Thor looked surprised as Loki ducked back underneath the boat again. He followed, glad to be in the shade again and away from the sun. Loki picked up a glass jar from what must have once been some kind of storage space inside the boat and began to crack the top of it against the edge of the shovel he had hit Dr Pendanski with.

 

“I call it Sploosh,” he explained, “because, well, it’s not exactly like anything I’ve ever eaten before.” The jar smashed open and he held it out to Thor. “I think it might have been jam before, or something like it.”

 

Thor sniffed it before taking a gulp of the thick, soup-like liquid. “That’s really good,” he admitted. “It tastes like peaches. How many have you got left?”

 

“Just two,” Loki replied. “Looks like most of them smashed when this boat capsized, whenever that was.”

 

“We’ll take them with us,” Thor decided.

 

“Thor, I’m not going back to Camp Greenlake.”

 

“You’ll die out here if you don’t. Anyway, I’ve got a plan. We’ll go back and tell the Warden exactly where I found Kissing Kate Barlow’s lipstick-”

 

“What’s Mar-yu-low?”

 

“What?”

 

“It’s written on the side of the boat,” Loki replied, sliding back out from under it again. Thor sighed, seeing that it would take a lot of convincing to get Loki back to Camp Greenlake, but he followed and realised what Loki meant.

 

“Oh, it’s Mary Lou, it’s a girl’s name. Most boats have names.”

 

“Oh. But I thought that “Y” made the “yuh” sound?”

 

“Yeah, it does at the beginning of a word but not at the end...” Thor broke off, noticing a peculiar looking mountain a little way away. “Loki...you see that?”

 

He pointed and Loki followed his gaze.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“What’s that look like to you?”

 

With a thoughtful frown, Loki gave him a thumbs-up. Thor copied him and they both nodded before glancing up at the mountain.

 

“You know,” Thor added, thoughtfully, “my great grandfather almost died out here, but he said he found refuge on God’s Thumb.”

 

“You think that’s it, then?” Loki asked. “He meant that mountain?”

 

“Only one way to find out,” Thor shrugged. “Come on.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seventeen year old Thor Odinson’s family has a history of bad luck, but even he didn’t foresee the turn of events that would send him to Camp Greenlake, Juvenile Detention Centre. 
> 
> Every day he and his fellow inmates – Dash, Grimm, Axel, Fighter and Frost - are told to dig a hole, five foot wide by five foot deep, reporting anything they find. The evil warden claims that it is character building, but this is a lie and Thor and his new friend Loki must dig up the truth.

“What do you reckon’s up there?” Loki asked as they made their way towards the mountain, after wrapping up the jars of Sploosh.

 

“I don’t know,” Thor shrugged. “Maybe a giant freezer?”

 

“Good,” Loki grinned. “I could use a hot fudge sundae.”

 

“Hey,” Thor grinned, suddenly. “Think about how fit this Mary Lou must have looked in a bikini.”

 

Loki laughed and then groaned. “Oh, no!”

 

“What?”

 

“Now I’m thinking about how fit Georgiana would look in a bikini!”

 

They both laughed.

 

“She doesn’t have a sister, does she?” Thor joked. “Or a cousin? I’m not fussy.”

 

“I’ll ask,” Loki smiled.

 

The climb wasn’t exactly easy, but little by little they managed, finding the safer areas of rock that wouldn’t send them slipping or plunging to their deaths, helping one another when they got into difficulties.

 

“We’d better get to the top before dark,” Thor muttered when they were about halfway up, “otherwise there’s no way we’ll be able to climb.”

 

Loki nodded, thoughtfully. “Give me some words.”

 

Thor grinned. “R-O-C-K-S.”

 

“Rocks.”

 

“D-E-S-E-R-T.”

 

Loki muttered “D-E-S...desert.”

 

“Right,” Thor grinned. “How about G-E-O-R-G-I-A-N-A?”

 

“Say that one again slowly,” Loki said. Thor repeated it more slowly and Loki thought for a second before smiling, tiredly. “Georgiana.”

 

“Yeah, keep thinking about her,” Thor encouraged.

 

Loki slowed as they neared the top. “Can we stop a sec?”

 

Thor looked at him, worriedly, and then nodded. “Yeah, let’s, but just for a bit. It’ll be dark soon.”

 

“Well, we can’t have much more left to climb,” Loki replied, breathlessly.

 

They both sank down onto the flat surface of the rock they had come to, Thor sitting, Loki almost lying, and stared out across the surface of the desert below them. It was amazing, Thor noted, how much ground could be covered in just one day.

 

Panting, Loki glanced up at him before bringing himself up into a sitting position and leaning against the rock they had yet to climb over. “Thor,” he muttered, closing his eyes, “I’ve got to tell you something.”

 

“What?” Thor asked. Loki didn’t reply. Thor leaned over and gave him a prod. “Loki? Come on, now.” Loki didn’t move, although Thor could tell from the rise and fall of his chest that he had just passed out. He took a deep breath. “Alright, if I have to carry you, I’ll carry you, but one way or another, Loki Laufeyson, we’re getting up this mountain.”

 

XXX

 

They sky was almost completely dark by the time Thor reached the top, with Loki on his back, and there were a few flies buzzing around, trying to land on him. He swatted them away in annoyance.

 

“Wait a minute,” he muttered, “if there’s flies, then there must be...water...”

 

He saw it then, the stream cascading down the mountain, natural, pure, clean water flowing in front of him. With a gasp of delight, Thor began to hurry towards it. “Loki, wake up!” Loki didn’t stir, however, as Thor put him down and dived straight into the stream, sipping water from cupped hands before throwing it at Loki with a laugh of “Wake up, Loki!”

 

Loki jumped as the cold water hit him and woke up at once. “What did you do that for?” he exclaimed, indignantly, and then realised where they were.

 

“We made it!” Thor shouted, grabbing Loki and pulling him into the water. Loki laughed as they both landed on their knees, the mud soaking their overalls, but neither of them cared as they drank the cool, clear water. Then, Thor noticed something in the ground and gave it a pull. It was an onion. Eagerly, he bit into it and then held it out to Loki. “Here, try this.”

 

Loki frowned. “Why?”

 

“Because it’s a hot fudge sundae; just eat it.”

 

Loki did so. “That’s the sweetest onion I’ve ever tasted.”

 

Thor flopped back into the water and began to sing the lullaby his ancestor had been taught.

 

“If only, if only” the woodpecker sighs,

“the bark on the tree was as soft as the skies.”

“While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely,

“he cries to the moon

“If only, if only...”

 

Everything felt right with the world all of a sudden, the hopeful feeling of a turn of luck, a different hand dealt, a throw of the dice, and somewhere above them, Farbauti Laufeyson finally smiled.

 

XXX

 

“Rise and shine, Loki!” Thor called the next morning.

 

Loki was asleep, curled up against a rock, but he stirred when Thor called him. “What’d you wake me for?” he asked, groggily. “I was in the middle of a great dream.”

 

“About your Georgiana?” Thor grinned.

 

“We were on a beach somewhere,” Loki agreed, stretching.

 

“Here.” Thor offered him an onion and sat down opposite him. “I filled the canteens.”

 

Loki took the onion, but didn’t eat it. “Thor, I’ve got to tell you something.”

 

“What?” Thor asked.

 

Loki took a deep breath. “It’s my fault you were sent to Camp Greenlake. I stole the shoes.”

 

Thor stared at him in surprise. “Wait...so you were the one who threw them at me?”

 

“I thought I was about to get caught,” Loki replied. Thor still looked startled, so he explained. “I told you, living on the streets you rely on homeless shelters sometimes, to help you out.”

 

“Clyde Livingstone said he’d donated them a homeless shelter,” Thor remembered.

 

“Exactly. My shoes were wearing through. I thought they were just there for the taking.”

 

Of course, Thor realised, Loki wouldn’t have been able to read the card next to them stating that they were famous shoes.

 

“Hang on, though, if you threw them at me, how’d you end up at camp?” Thor asked.

 

Loki smiled, thinly. “I tried taking a pair from a store. Like I said, mine were falling apart.” He nodded to the shoes on his feet. “These were given to me by Pendanski, they’re actually a size too big.”

 

Thor thought over what he had just been told and then smiled. “I’m glad you did that.”

 

“What?”

 

“I’m glad you stole the shoes and threw them at my head.”

 

Loki blinked at him. “Alright, not quite the reaction I expected, but-”

 

“No, hear me out,” Thor insisted. “If you hadn’t, then none of this would have happened. I mean, I thought I’d been sent here because of my family’s curse. But we’re not even at the camp now, we’re on God’s Thumb.” He glanced up at the sky. “I’ve just got this weird feeling...everything’s cool.”

 

Loki thought about it and then nodded. “Me too.”

 

“Same feeling?”

 

“Same feeling.”

 

“It’s a good one,” Thor agreed, and then he grinned. “Loki? I feel lucky.”

 

Loki began to laugh. “It’s the onions. They’ve gone to your head.”

 

“What do say we dig one more hole?” Thor asked.

 

XXX

 

They waited until early afternoon before climbing back down the mountain, and by the time they got to the bottom, it was beginning to get dark. With onions, water and two jars of Sploosh in their make-shift bags, they hurried under the cover of growing darkness over to where Thor had found the lipstick tube, he could remember the spot because of a large stone he had placed nearby that looked like a woman’s head.

 

“We’re going to need another shovel,” Loki worked out.

 

“Alright,” Thor replied, “but be careful.”

 

Loki gave him a look. “Trust me, Thor.”

 

Thor watched him run off towards the camp before he leapt into the hole and began to dig. Loki was soon back with another shovel, which Thor knew he had stolen from the shed where they were kept, and together they dug deeper into the hole.

 

“We should make it wider,” Thor said, beginning to work on the sides.

 

“I don’t think even Kissing Kate Barlow would bury treasure _this_ deep,” Loki replied. “And how do we know that one of her lot didn’t come back and dig it up already?”

 

“We don’t,” Thor replied, scraping around the edges of the hole with the shovel. Then, the shovel hit something solid with a thump and they both jumped, before looking at one another. Thor tried again and the same thump resounded about the hole. Together they began to work frantically at freeing the object, eventually unearthing it and holding it between them. It was a large and rather heavy wooden chest.

 

“This is it!” Loki realised. “This is what they’ve been looking for.”

 

Thor grinned at him, but their celebrations were cut short as suddenly a light was shone in their faces and they looked up in alarm to see the Warden, Mr Sir and Dr Pendanski all standing over them.

 

“Thank you, boys, you’ve been a big help,” the Warden smiled.

 

Something moved on the trunk and Thor glanced down, seeing it was, not one, but a whole family of Yellow Spotted Lizards. He and Loki both yelped in unison and then froze as the lizards began to clamber over them.

 

“Get in there and pull it out,” the Warden muttered to Mr Sir.

 

 _“You_ get in there and pull it out,” Mr Sir retorted.

 

“Well, it won’t take long,” the Warden decided. “I waited all these years, I can wait a few more minutes.”

 

“Hey, Thor, guess what?” Dr Pendanski asked. “You’re innocent. Your lawyer came by to collect you this morning. Too bad you weren’t there.”

 

“Don’t listen to them, Thor,” Loki muttered, trying hard to ignore the lizard that was staring him in the face.

 

“Well, now we’ve got a body to give her,” Mr Sir muttered.

 

“What about Frost?” Dr Pendanski asked.

 

“He was never here, remember?” the Warden stated. “We’ve got lots of holes to choose from. Do you boys know how long I’ve been waiting for this moment? My granddaddy owned the whole lake until it dried up, before he was wronged by Kate Barlow. She chose a labourer over him, a black guy, and when my granddaddy killed him, the whole lake dried up.”

 

“And that’s why she became Kissing Kate Barlow?” Thor realised.

 

“Yeah. He drove himself crazy digging holes out here. Made me dig too. Even on Christmas.”

 

The lizards still hadn’t bitten them yet, Thor realised, that was strange, surely. Everyone at Camp Greenlake seemed to be under the impression that they attacked on sight.

 

 _Well,_ he thought, _if I have to die tonight, I shouldn’t have to be standing up for it._

 

Slowly, he lowered the chest and sat down, the lizards jumping around him but never attacking as he did so. Loki sat down opposite him and they both glanced up their captors. Something told them it was going to be a long night.

 

XXX

 

Come early morning, everyone was still wide awake, and the lizards still hadn’t attacked yet. If anything, they seemed rather docile now, pet-like almost.

 

“I just don’t get it,” the Warden muttered. “Maybe we should just shoot them.”

 

“The lizards or the kids?” Dr Pendanski asked.

 

“You don’t want to shoot into those lizards,” Mr Sir said. “They’ll start leaping all over the place.”

 

The Warden glanced over his shoulder and exclaimed “Oh, for Pete’s sake, that can’t be her already!”

 

Thor glanced up at her, but Loki ignored her, intent on reading something on the trunk.

 

“Thor,” he muttered, “didn’t you say you were named after your ancestor, the one who almost died out here?”

 

“Yeah,” Thor muttered, focused on what the adults were saying. The Warden had just told Dr Pendanski to go and hold the other boys in the dining hall and warn them not to talk to the people who had just showed up. Thor suspected they were with the police. Then, they heard a yelp which sounded like Dr Pendanski falling into one of the holes, and both he and Loki began to laugh.

 

“I just don’t get it,” Mr Sir muttered, of the lizards. “Nothing seems to make sense ‘round here anymore.”

 

Thor and Loki sobered up as they heard Dr Pendanski coming back with someone, a woman, and from the sound of her voice, a lawyer. Thor felt a ray of hope at last, and then realised he could hear more footsteps, there were other people with her. Glancing up, he saw that they were official looking men in business suits, fellow attorneys, maybe?

 

“Oh, my God,” the female attorney exclaimed, seeing the lizards. “Haven’t you tried to get them out?”

 

“Just what would you suggest, exactly?” the Warden asked.

 

“Well, this wouldn’t have happened if you had released him to me yesterday.”

 

“Excuse me, this wouldn’t have happened if he weren’t a thief.”

 

“A thief?” Thor repeated, and he clambered to his feet. “That’s a lie!”

 

“I caught him running out of my cabin with my trunk,” the Warden stated.

 

“Thor didn’t steal anything,” Loki insisted, picking up the trunk and shoving it up out of the hole before clambering out after it. The Warden immediately pounced on it, but Loki pulled it out of her reach. “What are you doing? It’s Thor’s!”

 

“Listen, I could send Thor right back to jail for theft if I press charges, however in view of the circumstances, I think I’ll just take-”

 

“It has his name on it!” Loki interrupted her, and then he shoved it towards the attorney and her friends. “See? Thor Burison!”

 

“My great grandfather?” Thor began to laugh.

 

“That’s not possible...”the Warden whispered in disbelief.

 

“Thor, I’m taking you out of here,” his attorney stated. “Let’s go.”

 

“Come on, Loki,” Thor grinned as one of the suited men picked up the trunk. “We’re getting out of here.”

 

XXX

 

“Now,” stated Odin Borson, Thor’s Father, as they got ready to open the trunk around the kitchen table, “whatever happens, whatever’s in this box, we are still family.”

 

Everyone nodded in agreement. After some insistence that he wouldn’t leave Camp Greenlake without Loki, Thor’s attorney and her friends, who had turned out to be plain clothes officers, had managed to secure their release and they had driven back to Thor’s house. Of course, none of the other inmates could believe they had made it through several days in the desert and were still alive, and their reception had been exceedingly friendly. Axel even seemed to have forgotten that his feud with Thor several days earlier, hugging him tightly and then asking him if he could call his mother for him when he got back home “and tell her Volstagg said he was sorry.”

 

The Warden, Mr Sir and Dr Pendanski had all been arrested, and it looked like Camp Greenlake would soon be closed down, so the other young offenders would be free too, and sent to real Counsellors. And then it had rained, for the first time in Camp Greenlake for years.

 

“You be careful out there in the real world,” Fighter had told them before they left. “Not everyone’s as friendly as _us.”_

 

Now there was just the matter of the trunk, and if it did contain riches, whether some of them could be used to help Loki out.

 

Everyone around the table crossed their fingers for good luck and then Odin pried open the box.

 

“Oh, my, Odin, you’ve still got it,” Frigga, his wife, complimented.

 

Odin grinned and then they opened the trunk...revealing an assortment of ancient treasures inside. Amid all the murmurings of “Oh, my goodness,” from his family, Thor grabbed a very surprised Loki for a hug before going to investigate the contents of the chest.

 

“Hang on,” he said, “before we do anything, I think it’s only fair that half of whatever’s in this box goes to my best friend, Loki Laufeyson.”

 

Loki looked at him in surprise. “To hire a team of private investigators with?”

 

Odin smiled, kindly. “I think that can be arranged, Thor.”

 

“Did you say Laufeyson?” Bor asked.

 

“Yeah,” Loki replied, and then looked even more surprised when the old man embraced him too.

 

In the end, it turned out there was more than enough to be divided in half, and certainly enough for Loki to hire some private investigators, with plenty of excess left over. Odin and Frigga helped out there, getting in touch with all the right people and waiting by the phone for the day they brought good news as to the whereabouts of Georgiana. After a week, though, Loki began to worry.

 

“What if they _can’t_ find her, Thor?” he asked one evening as they sat in the living room, watching the news.

 

“They will,” Thor insisted, and when Loki still looked depressed, he leaned over and gave his friend a soft punch on the arm. “Hey, these people know what they’re doing, remember?”

 

Even as he said it, the phone rang and Odin answered it. Both boys strained their ears to listen. It sounded like Odin was talking to one of the investigators. They exchanged a glance, Thor’s hopeful, Loki’s apprehensive. Eventually, Odin hung up and walked into the room.

 

Loki got to his feet. “Have they found something?”

 

Odin smiled, gently. “They’ve found her, Loki.”

 

Thor jumped up and caught hold of Loki, who looked like he was about to fall over in shock.

 

“Is she alright?” Loki managed to say. “How is she?”

 

“From what they can ascertain, she was on her way back to you that day with food but there was an accident, on the road, between a bus and a lorry and several passersby got hurt as well as passengers. Georgiana was one of them. She got taken to hospital, but she’s alright now,” he added, when Loki looked alarmed. “Survived with a few broken bones and some bruises, and she was desperate to get back to you, but by the time she did, everyone had already moved on and you’d been arrested.”

 

“Hospital,” Loki muttered, running a shaking hand through his hair. “Why didn’t I think to look there?”

 

“Be fair,” Thor grinned. “They probably wouldn’t have let someone homeless in.”

 

Loki managed a smile.

 

“They’ll be bringing her over tonight,” Odin added, “although I’d rather not let them see the place in this state, so they’ve arranged for her to meet you at the bus station.”

 

“Let’s go, then,” Thor said, grabbing a coat.

 

The three of them made their way over to the empty station and Odin stood outside in the cold to keep watch whilst the boys sat inside in the warm. Loki was so nervous he couldn’t keep still.

 

“What if she hates me for not trying hard enough?” he asked.

 

“She won’t,” Thor insisted. “If she still loves you as much as you love her, she’ll just be happy to see you again.”

 

Loki nodded and they waited in silence until they caught a signal from Odin outside that someone was coming. They ran over to the window to see a car with tinted windows pulling up. The driver got out to talk to Odin, and someone else got out too, a girl. She was thin but very beautiful, her hair blonde and wavy and her eyes brown and curious as she glanced about the place. Before Thor even had a chance to blink, Loki shot out of the building and hurtled towards her. The girl saw him in the same instant and flew towards him, clinging to him as Loki gave her a hug that picked her up off her feet.

 

Thor smiled as he stepped outside, watching the two hug, hearing them both whisper “I love you,” before parting and then sharing a kiss. Casually, he strode over to them and waited until Loki noticed he was there and turned to him.

 

“This is my friend Thor,” he told the girl. “Thor, this is my Georgiana.”

 

“I feel like I know you already,” Thor replied, reaching to shake her hand.

 

Georgiana smiled, politely. “It’s nice to meet you.”

 

“You’re coming back with us,” Thor informed her. “Just until you two get yourselves settled.”

 

Loki smiled as he slipped an arm around Georgiana’s waist and kissed her forehead. “I’ve got so much to tell you,” he murmured.

 

XXX

 

And that is how the great grandson of Buri Aesirson and the great great grandson of Farbauti Laufeyson became next door neighbours.

 

Both boys, with a little help from Odin, Frigga and Bor, used what was in the trunk belonging to Thor Burison to buy adjoining houses, and Loki and Georgiana were able to track down some of their homeless friends from the streets to come and live with them. Thor often joked, though, that maybe they should just knock down the wall that separated the two houses and turn it into one big house for all of them, since both families overlapped into each other’s lives so much anyway.

 

And their friends from Cabin D were regular visitors to both. After having regular meetings with their Counsellors, they were all beginning to get back on their feet. They were even losing their nicknames and going by their regular names, Sif, Fandral, Volstagg and Hogun.

 

“Hey, have you guys heard?” Sif asked one day as they lounged by the pool outside Thor’s. “Camp Greenlake’s reopening, but as a Girl Scout camp.”

 

“No way!” Fandral, Volstagg and Hogun chorused.

 

“Well, they’ll be alright,” Thor grinned, “as long as the girls eat plenty of-”

 

“Onions,” he and Loki finished in unison and then laughed. It had turned out that that was why the lizards hadn’t attacked them that day, because of all the onions they had eaten up on God’s Thumb.

 

Georgiana came out into the garden then, and Loki smiled over at her. Thor nudged him. “Whoa, she _does_ look fit in a bikini,” he teased.

 

“Hands off, I saw her first,” Loki grinned and Thor laughed.

 

Georgiana hurried up to them, a sarong wrapped around her lower half like a skirt. “Thor, your Dad says the commercial’s starting!”

 

Everyone promptly got to their feet and hurried towards the house. As Frigga had predicted, Odin had had a breakthrough with his foot odour cure whilst Thor had been at Camp Greenlake, or rather whilst he and Loki had been sitting on top of God’s Thumb drinking stream water and eating onions. He had discovered that a combination of peaches and onions was the secret, and now he had managed to market the formula, under the name Sploosh, after hearing Loki use the word to describe the spiced peaches he and Thor had shared underneath the Mary Lou. It had become so popular with the company that bought it that they had commissioned none other than Clyde Livingstone, aka Sweetfeet, himself to appear in the advert.

 

Thor glanced around the room as they watched it, smiling to see Loki and Georgiana getting cuddly on the sofa together, looking so incredibly happy just to be with one another again, and to see his friends happily as far away from Camp Greenlake as they could get, and to see his parents happily living a better life than before, with his Grandfather and him.

 

Yes, it was like that feeling he and Loki had experienced on top of God’s Thumb. Everything was cool.

 

I guess you just have to fill in the rest of the holes yourself...

 


End file.
